Cheating Down on the Border
A kickback scheme among federal agents in Arizona results in some charges--and plenty of questions
Both Davenport, who lives in the Dallas area, and Forester, now residing in Las Vegas, left the Border Patrol three years ago. Davenport works for another law enforcement agency, and Forester operates his own business.
In his report to President Bush, Special Counsel Bloch detailed the history of the whistle-blowers' efforts to expose the wrongdoing. He was sharply critical of the agencies that investigated the allegations--the Justice Department's inspector general and the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Customs and Border Protection. Both agencies, however, say that they conducted thorough and careful investigations.
The Justice Department's inspector general, in a report issued in January 2003, detailed a serious pattern of misconduct, but Bloch's report accused the inspector general's office of dragging its feet. The inspector general, he said, initiated an investigation seven months after Davenport and Forester made their allegations--and then only after, Bloch wrote, "the whistle-blowers reported their allegations" to Rep. Jim Kolbe, an Arizona Republican. Kolbe demanded the inquiry. In an interview, Kolbe said Bloch's findings "illustrate the need" for homeland security officials "to get to the bottom of these things."
In his analysis, Bloch said that even after the Justice Department urged "strong and immediate" disciplinary action against wrongdoers, the Border Patrol refused to act. He cited a memo written in 2003 by a personnel official in what was then the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which then controlled the Border Patrol. The official wrote that it would be an "administrative burden" to discipline the offenders. "Thus, Border Patrol decided not to discipline federal law enforcement employees who broke the law because it would be administratively burdensome," Bloch told the president.
Given that kind of conduct, Bloch said, the special counsel staff demanded further investigation in November 2003. By that time, the Border Patrol had merged into the new Department of Homeland Security, as an arm of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection. In the next year, prodded by the special counsel's office, the customs agency conducted two reviews. Neither satisfied Bloch.
In the end, while some agents and a few supervisors were disciplined, he wrote, the investigations did not pursue evidence indicating that some senior managers at the Douglas station were aware of the kickback scheme. Bloch says Davenport maintains that he reported his concerns to three senior managers at Douglas but was told to "mind his own business."
Bloch also says investigators appeared to have "uncritically accepted" the assertions of senior managers that they were unaware of the kickback scheme. "The agency appears to have discounted without justification evidence implicating management and supervisory personnel in the wrongdoing," he said. Moreover, Bloch wrote, investigators "flouted [his office's] specific request that the whistle-blowers be interviewed regarding their allegations."
Despite the strong support given to them by Bloch and his staff, Davenport and Forester question whether all the facts about the Douglas episode will ever come to light. "Somebody here in Las Vegas, they rob a store of $20, they get 20 years in jail," Forester says. "A lot of these guys stole money, and they got slapped on the wrist. What happened to the integrity of the U.S. Border Patrol?"
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